


Migration Period

by Daring_Steel



Series: Brass Dawn [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Deconstruction, Discussion of Adult Themes, Gen, Rating May Change, Reconstruction, Team as Family, This is going to be long, characters to be added as they appear, pairings to be added as they appear, will pass Bechdel test once two female characters have been introduced
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-21 03:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6035503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daring_Steel/pseuds/Daring_Steel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>March 1995: 9-year-old runaway Luke Castellan meets an eccentric vagabond on a train.  In retrospect, everything spiralled downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 0 (Origins: The Rebel, Part 2)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story I've ever posted online. Updates may get spotty due to university, but I'll try to stick with it until the end. My writing abilities are powered by feedback, so please leave a comment to let me know what you think of it.
> 
> A/N October 2016: Not dead. Will be rewritten in the semi-near future. Probably in November, when I start looking for something to do instead of studying for finals.

Migration Period, Day 0

Origins: The Rebel, Part 2

\----

Luke was hungry.

He’d brought food from home, of course, but that had run out after the first few days. The money had lasted longer, but not by much. So he’d started stealing.

He hadn’t really meant to, he knew on an academic level that stealing was bad, but scrounging for loose change had gotten him more scrapes and cold-numbed hands than dollars and trying to panhandle had gotten the police after him. Two weeks after he left home, a guy in a suit had stopped in front of him with his back turned and his wallet not all the way in his back pocket and by then Luke was so hungry he didn’t even care.

After that, well, he’d just gotten better at it. He’d even thought up a snappy one-liner about it – a wallet a day keeps the hunger at bay. He did his best not to think about how easily he’d adapted to vagrancy and petty theft, or what it meant for his mental state that he was making jokes about it.

But that had been yesterday. Right now, he was on a southbound Metro-North sitting in New Haven Union Station, his backpack stuffed under his seat, with a pocket full of cash and an empty stomach. Because for all his newfound street-savvy, there were some things he hadn’t picked up on fast enough – like the problems of setting up shop too close to where you ran away from, lest the cops connect the runaway kid with the new pickpocketing streak. They’d put up more posters, run a TV spot, warned pedestrians to secure their valuables, and, as of yesterday morning, had started lurking around the fast-food joints. After the pair outside of the third McDonalds had started following him, he’d clued in on the merits of leaving town. There had been another pair of cops at the Dunkin’ Donuts outside Union, but Luke was pretty sure they hadn’t seen him.

Luke retreated deeper into his hoodie as a large red greatcoat containing a large dark personage annexed the two seats facing him. A lesser suit, containing a manifestly lesser human, gave the empty seat next to Luke a considering look. It received a look in return from Red Coat and evidently thought better of whatever it had been considering, moving up the car to the next half-empty row. Luke kept his eyes on the floor between his sneakers.

The doors closed, cuing the technical symphony of a train preparing to leave the station.

“'Ey.”

Luke kept his head down. There was no one on this train who wanted to talk to him, and no one he particularly wanted to talk to.

“Hey. Kid.” A heavy, black boot knocked his sneakers. Reluctantly, Luke looked up, eyes settling around the level of Red Coat’s elbows.

“Mom says I shouldn’t talk to strangers.” A lie. The train rumbled to life and began to move forward.

“And your stint as a runaway pickpocket has me thoroughly convinced that you’re hangin’ on to her every word. You got sloppy, kid.”

Propelled by some very stupid pre-teen instinct, Luke raised his head, blue eyes meeting black, and glared. Red Coat grinned back. “That’s the spirit. Check your three.”

Luke gave him a blank look. Red Coat jerked his head to Luke’s right, indicating the receding platform out the window and –

Luke whipped his head away and ducked away from the window, his heart pounding. Two cops were searching through the crowds, one of them speaking into his radio.

“I’m guessing they made you at the DDs out front, probably checked where you were headed with the ticket agent,” Red Coat said. “Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee over there are calling it in right now. They’ll have a squad car waiting at West Haven if they don’t already, send a few guys on to sweep the train.”

Luke was finding it hard to breathe. He couldn’t go back to Westport, or worse, into Social Services. A mindless animal dread, claustrophobic and suffocating, wound its way up his spine, he could not _could not_ let himself be caged -

A finger flicked his forehead, and the fear sank back. He blinked, his eyes focusing to see Red Coat half-smiling at him from under his broad-brimmed hat. “Buck up, kid. You’re not out of the game yet.”

Luke wiped his eyes to clear them. “I can’t go back.”

“’Course not.” Obvious. And the million-dollar question -

“How do I know I can trust you?”

Silence. Luke looked up to see Red Coat giving him the most serious-business look he’d ever seen in his life, including that time Mr. Hollander had walked into his office to find Luke's disciplinary record merrily blazing away in the wastebasket.

“The name’s Nick Scratch,” Red Coat said. “And if you want to leave this train alive, you’ll listen to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, doesn't this look much nicer now that it's all properly edited and prefaced. 
> 
> About me and writing: This will be my first work posted on AO3, or indeed anywhere. I have severe executive-function issues, so it's going to be difficult for me to keep up a regular update schedule, but I'll do my best and I hope you'll bear with me. I really hate getting into a work that ends up discontinued, and my fear of becoming one of those authors was a major part of why I haven't posted anything before now. Getting feedback is a major motivator for me, so if you want to see this continued, reviewing and commenting (the more detailed, the better) would be a good way to make that happen. (Seriously, any kind of feedback helps - spelling mistakes, wording criticism, questions about the characters / events, anything.) Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the ride. 
> 
> Also, I hope those of you who saw the earlier version of this chapter (consisting of the Preface in the top Notes section) like it better now. I assure you, my writer-brain is much less pretentious outside of first person. 
> 
> Chapter indexing notes (aka "why does this thing have like three titles, and why is it part 2, did I miss something"): This is the first part (Day 0) of the first story arc (Migration Period, former/working title: The Great Journey) of the larger story (Brass Dawn) that I'm planning to write. It's also part of a sub-series within the larger story, exploring the "origins" of various characters -- in this case, of Luke Castellan. It's "part 2" of Luke's origin chapter because some stuff happened before Luke got to New Haven that I'll probably write up at some point. The new title, Migration Period, is a reference aimed at history buffs.
> 
> Writing goal 02/16: I have exams through the next few days, but I'll try to post the first story chapter on Friday or Saturday.
> 
> 02/19: Chapter 2 should be up by Monday (or thereabouts).


	2. Day 0, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The name's Nick Scratch. And if you want to get off this train alive, you'll listen to me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luke makes a deal. / Luke and his new ally discuss cop-avoidance strategies.

Migration Period, Day 0

\----

“Step number one,” Nick said, his mouth curving back into a smirk, “is to calm your ass down. You’re going fit to burst there. Let the fear go. There’s nowhere to run in here, no point in having all that adrenaline in your system.”

As the train accelerated away from Union, Luke did his best to calm down.

“Now, plan of action time. We’ve got maybe 4 klicks to West Haven, that’s about 2 minutes at this speed. They’ll be there already, they’ll have people watching the platform to make sure we don’t try and give them the slip. We aren’t slipping off before then – you’re a tough little kid, but I don’t think you’re ready to go jumping off trains yet. Next stop after West Haven is Milford, that’s ten klicks and more than enough time for them to search the entire train.”

This was not helping Luke calm down, and he told Nick as much. Nick laughed.

“Chill, kid. If you were trying to do this on your own, right now? Yeah, you’d be dead. Fortunately,” he said, dramatically laying a black-gloved hand over his chest, “you are in the presence of a highly skilled tactician who happens to be something of an expert on this sort of thing.”

Luke mentally reclassified Nick from “weirdo” to “drama queen weirdo”.

“I don’t work for free, and I don’t take money from kids, so I’ll make you a deal. I’ll get us out of this tight spot today, and you can owe me.”

Ok, that just sounded creepy. “Owe you what, exactly?” Luke asked, giving Nick a Level Seven Incredulity Look, normally reserved for used car salesmen and televangelists.

Nick rubbed his chin. “Well, you’re quite hopeless now. I’d have to allow you to become my apprentice, until you’d learned enough to pay me back.”

“And what is it that you do?”

“Oh, you know,” Nick said, gesturing vaguely. “Bit of this, bit of that. Sort of a freelance, highly mobile, conflict resolution provider business.”

“...You’re a vigilante hobo.”

“Exactly!” Nick popped a finger-gun at him. “Most people don’t figure that part out so quickly.”

Well, it wasn’t like he had much to lose at this point, and it was probably better than being picked up by inhuman kid-eating monsters in police uniforms (or worse, actual cops). “Fine. But only because I don’t have anything better to do.”

Nick’s lean face broke into a wide grin. “Fantastic!”

“And no stupid titles. I’m calling you Nick.”

“You got it, Kid.”

Luke took a moment to review the situation again, found no better options, and stuck out his hand, which Nick shook.

There was silence for a moment, as Nick grinned like an idiot and Luke’s preteen antisocial glower dropped slightly below its normal levels, and Luke thought it might even be called companionable.

\--- 

“So,” Luke said, breaking the silence, “what’s your plan?”

His new teacher suddenly looked awkward. “Ah. Yes. Plan.”

“ _Do_ you have a plan?”

Nick looked indignant. “Don’t give me that, of course I have a plan. In fact, I have three plans. You’re talking to a professional here, remember.”

_A professional hobo_ , Luke thought. “Then what’s the problem?”

“...Well, I don’t know if we have time, but I guess we’d have to go over it eventually anyway. Kid,” Nick said, looking up, “how much do you know about Greek mythology?”

“It's real, it's alive, and it's probably trying to eat me. And I know I’m a demigod, if that’s what you’re asking.” It was one of the few topics May Castellan had been able to talk about coherently, towards the end.

Nick gave him a thumbs-up and a grin. “You're on top of things. So obviously we need two plans depending –”

“Depending on whether the cops that get on the train are mortals or monsters.”

“Bingo!”

“So fill me in.”

“Well, the first step is to determine what they are. I have a few ways to do that, I’ll teach you how once we get out of this. They’ll probably get on at the back of the train, to cut off our best escape route. If they’re mortals, I’ll just use the Mist to keep them from recognizing us.” Luke gave him a blank stare. “I’m going to Jedi-Mind-Trick them.” Luke nodded.

“And if they’re monsters?”

“Then I’ll wait for them at the coupling, off them while they’re between cars, and dump the bodies off the tracks if they don’t disintegrate fast enough.” At Luke’s confused expression, he added, “Monsters do that – you kill them and the bodies disintegrate. Kind of a mixed blessing when the cops barge into the aftermath of a fight and it’s just you and an ungodly mess, but it’ll work for us here.”

It sounded good. “So what’s the third plan for?”

“Plan C is our fallback. If anything goes wrong – Mist fails, they send more than one team, whatever – you hit the emergency stop, I drop a flashbang, and we jump out the window and run for the hills.”

“Great.”

Nick looked out the window as the train began to slow. “Here’s West Haven. Anything I missed?”

Luke shrugged. “Should I be doing anything to help?”

“Just keep up as you are, and stay cool. It’ll be easier to hide you if you aren’t freaking out.”

“Right,” Luke said as the doors opened and people began to trickle in and out. “It’s only possibly-inhuman cops searching the train to send me into foster care or possibly eat me, nothing to worry about.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “It’ll be fine. Hey,” he said, seeming to get an idea, “d’you keep a diary?”

Luke pulled the small black notebook out of his backpack. “It’s called a _journal_.”

“Whatever. Write down everything I’ve explained so far. It’ll help keep your mind off things.”

Luke flipped the journal open and started a new entry. _March 22, 1995, mid-morning. Weather in New Haven: Overcast, cold, and drizzly (glad I'm leaving).  Mood: Hopeful - things may be looking up._

“And hey,” Nick said as the train pulled away, “keep up with it and maybe you’ll be able to sell the story rights someday.”

Luke gave him a Level Eight Incredulity Look before continuing his entry.   _Met Nick Scratch.  Appears to be multiple forms of crazy.  Offered to help me escape police.  We'll see how that goes._

\-----

From _A Hero's Memoir: The Annotated Journals of Luke Castellan, Adventurer (50th Anniversary Special Edition, 2068)_ : 

In retrospect, I suppose it was prophetic that my first encounter with the personage known as Nick Scratch ended with total plan failure, explosions, and fleeing the police. It was an unholy mess of a day, and would set the tone for the majority of our future partnership.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, so much for the "get it done by tomorrow" plan, but at least it got done. Onwards!
> 
> Edit 2016/10/18: Combined this with what used to be the third chapter. 
> 
> Original Chapter 3 end notes (2016/02/27): And now we have a solid start date for the story! One of the things that bugged me about the PJO series was the lack of a consistent timeline, so I'm going to try and change that here. 
> 
> (You may be wondering "wait, Luke has a backpack?" Yes, he did! The writer just didn't find a good place to mention it before now. For that matter, Nick also has a hat.)
> 
> I'm coming up on the end of reading week, so I'll have less time to work on this until school ends. I'll try to get a chapter out every week or two, though. 
> 
> As always, I love getting feedback, so please do leave comments.


	3. First Contact With Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When there is a plan, things cannot go according to it. If they do, the plan becomes a spoiler."  
> \-- How NOT To Write A Novel 
> 
> "No plan survives first contact with reality."  
> \-- Unknown, variously attributed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finally got this finished up, after more than a month of delay. I came down with the flu, missed a week of midterms, and then had to spend a few weeks playing catchup. Also my muse ran over and started playing with some of the other plot bunnies that have taken up residence in my brain. I can't really promise anything about future update schedules, because my immediate future is scheduled to contain final exams, a cross-continental flight back home, possibly a month of independent study, and a move to a new city. But I can say that I don't plan on abandoning this -- it may take years of sporadic updates and switches to other works as my muse allows, but I will finish it eventually.

From _A Hero's Memoir: T_ _he Annotated Journals of Luke Castellan_ : 

Shortly after 10:15, all three of Nick Scratch’s plans failed catastrophically and in quick succession.

First, three (human) police officers entered from the trailing car. As per Plan A, Nick had already masked both his and my presence with Mist-based multi-layer perception filters.  As he would later explain to me, the first layer, a basic perception filter, made it difficult for normal humans to look directly at us.  The second layer, a significantly more complicated working, acted on the parts of the human brain that compiled and sorted visual input, preventing anyone who did look at us from forming a mental image of what we looked like.  The third blocked the visual cortex from passing on any such image to the visual memory, preventing anyone who managed to look at us from remembering our appearance at a later time or connecting it to other information (such as a wanted poster).  

The presence of three officers instead of two, while unexpected and unusual, did not in itself constitute a failure of Plan A. That two were wearing Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police badges and the third an NYPD logo was even more so – but inter-departmental operations were not entirely unknown.

The two MTA officers passed over us without stopping. The third, a tall, tawny man with dark hair and startlingly blue eyes, ignored me entirely, locked onto Nick, and immediately drew his handgun.  

I would learn more of then-NYPD Lieutenant John Hunter – 32 years old, Iroquois and Russian descent, formerly of the USMC, qualified shaman, and legacy of more gods than he could name – in the months and years to come.  At this time, his presence marked the catastrophic failure of Plan A.

Almost simultaneously, the forward door opened to admit six large persons in battered, dirty labor gear. The leading worker looked up, saw Hunter, made a noise that should not have been possible with human vocal equipment, and contorted its face and forearms. Hunter, his fellow officers, and Nick looked over just in time to see the skin on its face and hands rupture from the inside, revealing articulated mouthparts and elongated arms ending in serrated claws the size of kitchen knives. The passengers started to panic as the other five shed their own disguises.

The entrance of three Lesser Appalachian Ogres, two Red-Ringed Dracenae, and one Northeastern Skinwalker, undetected and uncontained, marked the catastrophic failure of Plan B.

The two mortal MTA officers blanched. Hunter swore loudly and turned away from Nick to aim at the monsters. Nick and I exchanged glances and switched to Plan C.

Nick pulled a small metal cylinder out of his coat and threw it onto the floor. I reached up and pulled the emergency stop. As the train jerked to an abrupt halt, the stun grenade detonated, and the chaos already emerging in the car accelerated beyond all hope of management, we forced the doors, jumped the fence, and bolted across the field away from the tracks.  

Thirty-six very exciting seconds later, the car was covered in blood and filled with slowly clearing smoke, the Ogres and Dracenae were dust, the more durable Skinwalker was in several slowly-disintegrating pieces both inside and outside the train, and Hunter was reloading his gun.  The MTA officers were outside the car, attempting to corral the crowd of panicking civilians off the other tracks. Nick and I were most of a kilometer away from the train and still accelerating inland.

By the standards of our later works, plans A and B were fragile things - a necessary consequence of the circumstances.  We were in an enclosed space with an unknown quantity of unknown opponents approaching from multiple directions; general plan failure and chaos was likely if not inevitable.  Thus, Plan C, our getaway contingency, started with the assumption that everything had already gone wrong.  Where plans A and B relied on external elements moving in specific (if likely) patterns, and aimed to manage the imminent chaos, plan C relied only on our own well-tested core strengths of creating as much chaos as possible and running away. 

With a roar, Hunter tore through the side of the train, hit the ground running, and began to quickly close the gap.

This marked the catastrophic failure of Plan C.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually didn't come up Hunter until I started writing this chapter -- I needed a way for Nick's plans to fail that still allowed our protagonists to get off the train. That said, I'm glad he's here -- he fits in nicely with the (as-yet-unseen) backstory I've come up with. 
> 
> Worldbuilding interlude: If you're wondering, Hunter is a Legacy -- the descendent of a demigod. They are generally more common, but less powerful, than demigods, and also tend to attract fewer monsters. In fact, the vast majority of Legacies are in name only -- they don't have any notable abilities to set them apart from humans, and they generally go their entire lives without knowing about their divine heritage. (Many demigods lived centuries or millennia ago, and were the sort of powerful, exciting people who tended to have many children, much like real-life historical kings and emperors -- you may or may not be aware that approximately 0.5% of all modern humans, or around 30 million people, are almost definitely descended from Genghis Khan -- if demigod powers bred true in more than a handful of cases, then the world would be full of superhumans and would look very different.) Hunter is one of the few who does have notable powers (which we'll see more of next chapter), but he also happens to be unaware of his own nature -- his powers are subtle and basic enough that he can just be mistaken for a really capable human, and he's not really given to introspection.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment, rate, and leave kudos!


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